What do you use the womens’ toilets for?

[FancyRibbon]

Inspired by recent posts on the Radio 4 thread.
I realised that the whole ‘Why do you even care who is pissing in the cubicle next to you?’ argument against single sex toilets underestimates how I think many women actually do use/need the ladies’.

It’s not just about the cubicle being private to you as an individual woman (though this is really important), it’s also about knowing there is a door behind which there is a women-only space that can be really important. Some of that is specifically about it NOT being a male space.

So eg what I use the women’s toilets for is:

• pissing, crapping, dealing with periods, POAS
• a place to cry especially at work when you don’t want anyone else to see
• a place to go and just sit and feel exhausted because your baby is not sleeping and you’re back at work

-as above washing and drying breastmilk leaks on clothes which involving standing about with some stuff off

• a place to sort out falling down tights and gappy shirts, -against adjusting/taking off clothes possibly while checking in a mirror
• somewhere to talk to other women privately knowing men won’t be around
• in bars and clubs, a place to get away from male hassle

I just don’t want to share women’s toilets with men. Self ID will be making that not my choice any more. I feel that I won’t be able to just avoid gender neutral toilets and look for a women’s any more, because women’s toilets won’t exist and campaigning for them will be hate speech.

I've hidden in the loos to get away from a man before who would not leave me alone even though I had said explicitly that I did not want to date him.

We need to keep single sex provision.

ejaculator :)

What do I do in a loo- relieve my ever flowing bladder, the occasional poo, change my incontinence pads. Occasionally fix my lippie, check my t zone for shinyness. I am a woman - have a vagina not a penis. Plain and simple need no other tag thanks.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3709300-Evidence-that-women-generally-prefer-single-sex-lavatories

Another relevant thread. We should not have to demonstrate evidence for a majority of women wanting to retain same sex.

Even if loads of women were fine with it, so what, many women are absolutely not, and freedom of access to toileting for all women is a basic right.
Regardless of the views of the fabled woman who would rather share a toilet with men statistics show that mixed sex toileting puts women at increased risk of harassment or attack from men.
So it’s a stupid idea, every way that you look at it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3749831-Share-your-experiences-of-gender-neutral-toilets?pg=1&order=

Another relevant thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4065651-lucy-bannerman-on-her-miscarriages-etc-in-the-times-magazine-today

Link to a very moving article in the Times about miscarriage and discussion of posters’ experiences of miscarriage, with women highlighting the importance of having female-only toilets when they went through such a painful and difficult time.

Big news: The government has just announced that they will be reviewing the provision of public toilets (in England) specifically including in relation to women’s need for single sex toilets. (This is in the sense of exploring whether gender neutral toilets are a suitable alternative to single sex toilets.. the answer to that being no).

www.gov.uk/government/news/government-review-to-boost-the-provision-of-toilets-for-women-and-men

Anyone can respond, closes in Jan 2021. More info and how to respond:
www.gov.uk/government/consultations/toilet-provision-for-men-and-women-call-for-evidence

‘ This call for evidence launches a technical review of provision of toilets for men and women.

Women often have to face excessive queues for toilets or don’t have access to appropriate facilities that meet their needs when out. In some cases this can mean women are reluctant to go out or take trips that many take for granted.

Over recent years there has also been a trend towards replacing female only facilities with gender neutral toilets.

The review aims to address this by considering the ratio of female toilets needed versus the number for men, given the need for women to use always use cubicles. It would also take into account the needs of all members of the community, to ensure there is a fair provision of accessible and gender-neutral toilets.

The review will also look at signage, which should be clearer and use gender-specific language, to avoid confusion.’

MN discussion of this review
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4065521-women-win-guarantee-over-female-only-public-lavatories-the-times

if you read the government links it does seem that the government is intending to mean female biology when they talk about women and their ‘sex‘ (which they do here rather than refer to women and their ‘gender’) in these pages. It’s such a relief to see this!

This is a really welcome step by the government. Having women’s toilets is really essential and replacing them with gender neutral toilets does not meet women’s needs in lots of ways..... but... important to note, this is not the same thing as having women-only people in women’s toilets.

Maybe it’s also worth mentioning in responses to this that genderism and the boundary-pushing that is going on into occupying women’s single sex spaces for validation purposes, is also a massive issue in terms of women feeling free to access their own women’s toilets. (if women think there are likely to be men in their toilets, regardless of how those men identify their gender or what legal certification they possess, many women will be less likely to use those toilets)

So while single sex provision is essential, the use of single sex women’s toilets for validation purposes by male-bodied people still forms a significant barrier to many women in using them freely, which this review doesn’t directly address.

Thanks for this thread, FancyRibbon, and all the links. If I saw a man in the women's loo as I entered, I would walk out. That annoys me because I have the right to use it and he doesn’t. But I can’t get rid of him and I know from experience that a man in a women’s space is not there for the good of women.

I don't have much to add about specific activities, instead it's something that only happens when I'm in a women's private space. Something we do instinctively yet aren't always conscious of is the difference in body language around men and women.

I know in public, especially if I'm around men, everything from my facial expressions to the way I bend down to pick something up is affected. In women's only spaces, I know my smile won't be automatically mistaken for flirtation and my cleavage or rear won't be an immediate focusing point should I bend at the hips instead of the knees.

The addition of men will change the entire atmosphere in that small space. Throwing a polite smile at the woman who comes to wash her hands next to you only to notice it's actually a man will be sure to send a quick spike of fear. Bending over to get a close up in the mirror and seeing a smiling man standing behind you will cause a sudden posture straightening so as not to be visibly undressed.

I think we often say "it makes women uncomfortable" but have difficulty explaining what makes the presence of a man so uncomfortable. Yes changing, crying, and periods- but ultimately it's about vulnerability. Women are constantly in a state of caution around strange men, and even in a fight-or-flight mode when in an enclosed space with them. We are the prey, men the predators and just as in nature, mistakenly letting your guard down around the wrong one can have a grizzly end.

@WomanBornNotWorn

Another angle - my mum's partner has recently had to have a colostomy with a stoma bag for collecting and storing poo. He is in his 70s and having to come to terms with it. He's dreading the first time he has to change in public loos and it's restricting his confidence to go out. I haven't discussed this with him but I can't imagine knowing there's a woman in the next cubicle will be helpful.

He is entitled to use the accessible toilet.

Toilets are our safe spaces, our panic rooms, our female solidarity zones.

It's where we deal with our female bodies and where we can talk to each other.

In my clubbing days we used to use the toilets as our getaway space, an excuse to escape any man who was bothering us. We could help other women in the toilets - maybe someone who had drunk too much and had lost her friends or someone upset who just needed a chat without being hit on.

We can call security, the police or our other friends from the safety of the toilets.

I use toilets to urinate or defecate in or change laddered tights. I used to change sanitary protection but no longer need that.

My preference since developing Crohn's Disease would be single occupancy, floor to ceiling fully enclosed cubicles.

Not read the whole thread (18 pages front and back! lol)
but in answer to what I go to the women's toilet for

• going to the bog
• washing my hands
• maybe brush my hair if I look particularly bedraggled (half the time I don't even have a brush or comb though so just use my hands and hope smoothing it down with water might help ) That's about it

Forgot changing tights - yes, sometimes I might buy tights and attempt to put them on in the public lavs whilst balancing on one leg and holding onto the wall with my hand

Aside from the obvious:

changing clothes
panic room/safe space
crying
vomiting
putting on make up/brushing hair
sorting out children
cleaning up spills down clothing
just being able to relax to do any of those things

@Lobsterface

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar

you’ve lost me now. Women can be domestic abusers, sexual predators etc too. It’s got to be a two way argument, women aren’t all perfect.

Can I direct to you to the YouTube page entitled These are not our crimes.

You are right to say that woman can be abusers , no one denies that, but I doubt that many women abusers are included in the statistics for male perpetrated crimes, however male abusers are being recorded in the statistics for female perpetrated crimes.

[I dunno, they want our words, our language, our identities, our legally recognised sex protection, our refuges, our toilets, our prisons, and now they want our criminal statistics as well. Where will it end.]

Our local tube station has a women only waiting room with ladies' lavatory in it and separately a mixed one. I have always rather liked it and fairly often thrown men out (very politely) over the years.

On the toilets issue there are all kinds of reasons we women want our own space. I used to express all my milk at work in one for example. I have dealt with blood on clothes from menstruation and all sorts in there. We do not want me in there. I am glad the Government seems to have seen sense on this. I have no problems with trans people using disabled loos and that kind of thing.

We do want you in there Xenia!
Just don’t want men in the women’s.

I don’t want floor to ceiling doors to become the norm now my daughter has seizures. I would rather someone know if she was on the floor.

I once used a restaurant loo to call the police. Minutes before a man in a nearby pub had told me in great detail how he was going to kill a specific person.

I was so scared and was happy to be able to lock myself in somewhere for a few moments.

Thank you and I will respond. As a man I have no wish to go into women's toilets and thank you for all the reasons those posting on the thread have given.

Resurrecting this thread because it’s valuable evidence of what women and girls urgently need single sex toilets for.

It would appear from the news today that the government could start advising businesses and services to offer gender neutral toilets provision as a response to the recent Supreme Court decision . Note the ministers are not saying ‘but you just also continue to provide single sex women’s toilets’. Obviously we don’t know what EHRC will advise yet but worrying the government is getting ahead on this issue like this.

While I don’t want men in women’s toilets, I don’t want women’s toilets to be given away to be gender neutral either. The point is that these are our spaces that we need as women. For valid reasons, as these pages and pages of posts evidence clearly.

Gender neutral toilets do NOT provide any equivalent to women’s single sex toilets. It’s about being privately in the company of other women. And women don’t want to be mopping men’s piss before they can use the toilets, or having men leave the door open so we have to see them using the toilets.
Following all the years of strife to get to the excellent Supreme Court decision of 2025 re Equality Act 2010, it would be a tragic result if women’s toilets start disappearing. I think we need to next campaign to be to protect single sex women’s toilets, as they would seem to be very much under threat.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y42zzwylvo

Bridget Phillipson managed a women’s refuge before becoming an MP, and yet even she seems to be saying that gender neutral is the way forward. This is so wrong. It’s fine to have a third space toilet where that can be accommodated, but it’s absolutely not fine to remove women’s single sex provision entirely or to relabel that as ‘gender neutral’ which I can see many cash-strapped businesses doing.

And. which will cause an outrage amongst some men, it needs to be argued loudly that if single sex provision is essential to be removed to accommodate third spaces, then the provision to be removed must be taken away from men’s single sex toilets provision. Not from the women’s toilets- women have a lot more reason to need a single sex space.

Anyone else worried by this?

More context on what Bridget Phillipson has been saying today: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5319924-bridget-philipson-tw-should-use-toilets-according-to-biological-sex